5 papers
"Zero Cost'' Majority Attacks on Permissionless Blockchains
Joshua S. Gans, Hanna Halaburda
The core premise of permissionless blockchains is their reliable and secure operation without the need to trust any individual agent. At the heart of blockchain consensus mechanism…
Mechanism Design Approaches to Blockchain Consensus
Joshua S. Gans, Richard Holden
Blockchain consensus is a state whereby each node in a network agrees on the current state of the blockchain. Existing protocols achieve consensus via a contest or voting procedure…
A Solomonic Solution to Ownership Disputes: An Application to Blockchain Front-Running
Joshua S. Gans, Richard Holden
Blockchain front-running involves multiple agents, other than the legitimate agent, claiming a payment from performing a contract. It arises because of the public nature of blockch…
More (or Less) Economic Limits of the Blockchain
Neil Gandal, Joshua S. Gans
This paper extends the blockchain sustainability framework of Budish (2018) to consider proof of stake (in addition to proof of work) consensus mechanisms and permissioned (where t…
Self-Regulating Artificial General Intelligence
Joshua S. Gans
Here we examine the paperclip apocalypse concern for artificial general intelligence (or AGI) whereby a superintelligent AI with a simple goal (ie., producing paperclips) accumulat…